


En Voyage

by Beth Winter (BethWinter)



Category: North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell | UK TV
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethWinter/pseuds/Beth%20Winter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a while to go until the train reaches Milton, and some small words left to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	En Voyage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [empyrean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/empyrean/gifts).



It took them another three stations to emerge from this fog, this intoxication of each other's presence. Margaret kept getting caught in the edges of John's smiles, all of them begging for a kiss. For all that he had been through sorrow, he looked younger, renewed, and finally she managed to hold that thought long enough to speak it out loud.

"It is strange," he agreed. "I spent so long fighting for Malborough Mills to survive that once it failed - don't take my words wrongly, I'm grateful for your kind business proposition-" here, he stole another kiss that she granted gladly. "And I'll know how to proceed this time with renewed strength. But I also know that the day after the last workers left, I was still the same man as before, no more and no less. I know that whatever happens, it will never be what happened - then."

"Not the same loss as losing your father," Margaret whispered.

He turned his face into her palm, eyes closed, peaceful. "Not being my father. I've feared it for fifteen years, that night after everything is over."

"Your mother didn't. But I think she knew you did." She stumbled over her words, trying to express what she now understood of that complex, much-grieved woman. "She told me she didn't know where you were, but she always trusted you to see her right."

Regret and shame flitted over his face. "I didn't even think of Mother. I hope you will get along." The tone of his voice made it clear he considered it a fool's hope.

"There are some things I need to explain to her. And you," Margaret added. "The wedge between us - the train station, I need to tell you that it was Frederick you saw-"

"Your brother, I know." He smiled at her surprise. "Higgins told me about him."

"You talked to Higgins?"

"Often. The man does not know when to turn off his brain."

She giggled into his shoulder. "That is perfectly Nicholas. He did write about the canteen, and the reference you gave him, and little Tom. I know more than you think, you see."

"I should have the man sacked, if he were still employed," John said dryly. "As it is, I will have to hire him again just to sack him for spying on my business."

Smiling, she tucked her head under his chin. "I'll have to eat in the canteen as well, when you do. I won't have you keeping Mary's cooking to yourself."

"You'll have to do more than that. Mother can show you all the duties, I mean..."

"I think we'll be fine now," she said quietly. "I think she knows you're no longer trapped by your parents' life. Though it'll be a such a chore quelling all the gossip before it can get to her."

He tapped at her chin, meeting her eyes in confusion. "Have we scandalised society again?"

At that, she straightened and pulled away, folding her arms. "When even I can tell, you have nothing to look so put-upon about. I was most certainly not the person who saw it fit to run away to Helstone, then spend a train journey in a shocking state of deshabille, without either coat or cravat, then took the liberty to kiss a respectable and escorted young lady in sight's reach of everyone who cared to look. Not to mention indulging her folly when she abandoned her escort to ensconce herself in a train carriage with the same disreputably dressed person."

John was still smiling, the infuriating man. "I seem to have damaged your reputation, though I hope not beyond repair, if you are willing to make that effort."

"If you accept my business proposition, I may consider a personal one," she agreed. "Providing you do not babble about fruit again."

She had to kiss him again at that to stop the storm gathering over his head.

"Mother will overlook our adventure, I hope," he said once they caught breath again. "You will find her practical."

"Immensely practical," Margaret agreed. "The most practical person I know of, and both you and Fanny take after her."

"Fanny?" He looked at her quizzically. "That is not a word used often for my sister."

"She surprised me," she murmured. "She lives for the beautiful things, art and music and fabrics, but she made a practical marriage."

"Watson can keep her in all those, easily."

"But he will also keep her in Milton. London, perhaps, once or twice a year. But he is not the kind of person who will indulge her desire to see India, Egypt, the coast of Barbary." She hooked her little finger over the cuff of his shirt. "She has kept those dreams in a box of her own, just like you kept your dreams of an Oxford education."

She felt him startle. "How did-"

"Because you paid far too much money for the chance to study with an old academic," she said. "Because for all your austerity, you're so painfully correct in your manners and accent. You enjoy your work, but it isn't what you dreamed about."

"We can't all have what we dreamed about." There was a roughness in his voice, the northern accent so much heavier. "In dreams, all would be masters, or gentry of leisure. This is no way for life to happen. We need to grow and leave the dreams behind."

"But we need to remember them. They are the things that give us courage when our fears threaten to shut us in. We need our dreams when we need to do something very brave and very foolish."

He kissed her hair. "When I saw you across the platform."

"When I saw you," she echoed.

"I thought of all the stories of brave knights who didn't need their ladies to love them back. It was enough to love them."

"I thought of all the times I was told a lady does not speak of business, or approach a man, or take the lead." She looked up at him. "Will you do me the honour of becoming my husband?"

He smiled then, and she felt it reflected on her own face. They must look younger, she thought, all of twelve, he a rich man's son with a head full of knightly tales among the thick walls of the North, she a determined hellion in the warm and safe embrace of the South. But there was no-one but themselves in the carriage, for as long as it took to reach their destination.

Together.


End file.
